Tossed No More
Maturity in the Body • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Reading from God’s Word
Reading from God’s Word
12 Not that I have already reached the goal or am already perfect, but I make every effort to take hold of it because I also have been taken hold of by Christ Jesus.
13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead,
14 I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus.
15 Therefore, let all of us who are mature think this way. And if you think differently about anything, God will reveal this also to you.
Introduction
Introduction
I want you to picture a man with me this morning.
He's been a Christian for forty years. He sits in the same pew most Sundays.
He knows his Bible.
He can tell you stories from the early days of this congregation — who taught what, who came forward when, who helped build the building.
He's faithful. He's known.
He's quietly, deeply proud — I've been at this a long time.
And somewhere along the way, the running stopped.
Not the showing up. He still shows up. The running.
As you allow that imagery to fill your mind, Here's a question should wreatle with: How would he know?
How would the man who stopped running know that he had stopped?
He's still in the seat.
He's still got the Bible open.
He's still here.
From the outside, nothing looks different.
From the inside, something has gone quiet.
Here’s the ansswer: He'd know the moment he caught himself thinking, I've arrived.
Because the moment w”e begin to think I've arrived" we’ve stopped running. And most of the time, we don't notice.
Last Sunday we looked in the mirror and asked are we still on milk?
The Hebrew writer was frustrated with his readers.
By this time you ought to be teachers, he says, and instead you need somebody to feed you the basics again.
Years in the church without growth in Christ.
We sat with that diagnosis. We let it sting a little.
Today Paul shows us the antidote.
It's a way of being. It's a way of leaning.
It's the mind of the mature Christian — and you cannot fake it from the outside.
Now look at v. 12.
12 Not that I have already reached the goal or am already perfect, but I make every effort to take hold of it because I also have been taken hold of by Christ Jesus.
Slow down on that.
This is Paul.
The apostle.
Decades into ministry.
Letters to seven churches.
Missionary journeys across the Mediterranean.
Beaten with rods. Stoned. Shipwrecked.
He is writing this letter from a Roman prison cell, in chains for the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And he says, I'm not there yet.
Listen. If Paul won't claim it, who can?
That's the shock of v. 12. And that's where I want us to focus for a few minutes.
Now — the title for this morning is Tossed No More.
That phrase doesn't come from Philippians.
It comes from Ephesians 4 — our anchor passage for the whole month.
Paul writes there about the church growing up into maturity,
14 Then we will no longer be little children, tossed by the waves and blown around by every wind of teaching, by human cunning with cleverness in the techniques of deceit.
Tossed no more.
That's where we're going over the course of this month.
A church that doesn't get blown around.
And what we're going to find this morning in Philippians 3 is the inside view of what tossed no more feels like.
It's a settled mind.
It's a fixed eye.
It's a runner with everything in him leaning forward.
Here's the big idea, for today: The mature aren't the ones who've arrived. They're the ones who know they haven't, and keep pressing.
First — what Paul refuses to claim in verse 12.
Then — what he does instead in verses 13 and 14.
And then — what he commands of us in verse 15.
Let's get to work.
Not That I've Obtained It (v. 12)
Not That I've Obtained It (v. 12)
Look at how Paul opens v. 12.
12 Not that I have already reached the goal or am already perfect, …
That little phrase, "not that," is a corrective. It's Paul pulling the brake.
Look back at vv. 7–11. He just said breathtaking things.
He counted everything he ever had — his pedigree, his religious credentials, his standing as a Pharisee — he counted all of it as loss for the surpassing worth of knowing Christ.
He said he wants to know the power of Christ's resurrection and share in his sufferings.
He said he wants to attain the resurrection from the dead.
Such a powerful paragraph.
And Paul knows that someone is going to walk out of that paragraph thinking, Wow. Paul is something else. Paul has it figured out.
So he steps in immediately and pulls the brake. Not that I have already obtained it. Not that I am already perfect.
See how he says already twice in one verse.
Already obtained. Already perfect.
He repeats it for emphasis.
The thing he is most insistent on refusing is already-ness.
Now think about what that means for us.
Mature Christians — we'll come back to this in v. 15 — mature Christians don't fly the I've-arrived flag.
They've taken it down.
They're not interested in carrying it anymore, or building a case for it.
Maturity does not look like a man who is finished. Maturity looks like a man who refuses the claim of finished.
The signature of arrival is the confession of non-arrival.
The most mature Christian in this room this morning is somewhere very quietly thinking, I'm not there yet.
That confession is part of how we know they're mature.
Now look at the next phrase in v. 12:
12 … I make every effort to take hold of it …
ESV:
12 I press on to make it my own, …
"press on" — to pursue. To chase. To hunt.
Look back at v. 6:
Paul is listing his pre-Christ credentials, the things he used to be proud of, and he says:
6 regarding zeal, persecuting the church; regarding the righteousness that is in the law, blameless.
Persecuting. Same Greek word. “Pursuing.” “Chasing.” “Hunting.”
The man who used to spend every fiber of himself chasing Christians now spends every fiber of himself chasing Christ.
Same intensity. Same fire. Same drive. Redirected.
Isn’t that an amazing picture? What is it teaching us?
The passion in you is not the problem. The aim is the problem.
Paul had more fight than any of us.
He used it for the wrong thing for years.
And then Christ got hold of him, and that same fight became a chase after Jesus that didn't end until he was beheaded for him.
The mature take the fire that used to chase the wrong things, and they aim it at Christ.
Now look at the second half of v. 12. Paul tells us why he presses on:
12 …because I also have been taken hold of by Christ Jesus.
“Taken hold of:” to seize, to grab.
And here's the thing — it's the same verb Paul just used in the first half of the verse.
Paul says, I press on to lay hold of, because Christ Jesus has laid hold of me.
Both halves. Same verb. Reciprocal grip.
Picture the Damascus road. Saul on his way to round up Christians and drag them back to Jerusalem. He's got papers in his pocket. He's got blood on his hands. He's got murder in his heart. And out of heaven, a hand reaches down and grabs him.
That grip is the basis of everything Paul does for the rest of his life.
And know this: Paul's pursuit is response, not foundation.
He is not running to be found. He is running because he has been found.
And neither are you.
The pressure is off the start. The grip is already on.
He has hold of you.
You aren't trying to prove yourself worthy of it.
You run because you have been seized.
Every step of pursuit you take this week —
every prayer, every passage, every act of obedience, every refusal to fold under temptation
every one of those steps is a response to a hand on the back of your neck that has been there since the day you came up out of that water.
Christ has hold of you. You run because you've been found.
So here's what we have so far. Paul refuses to claim arrival.
He pulls the brake on his own self-assessment.
And the reason he can pursue with such intensity — without ever claiming completion — is because the grip on him preceded any grip he might ever have on the goal.
Now — having refused to claim arrival — Paul tells us what he does instead.
Let's go to vv. 13 and 14.
Forgetting and Straining (vv. 13–14)
Forgetting and Straining (vv. 13–14)
Look at v. 13.
13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead,
See how he says it again.
13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead,
As if to make sure we didn't miss it the first time. As if he wants us to feel the weight of how seriously he is refusing this claim.
And then:
13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead,
The mature life is a single-eyed life. It is the one-thing life.
It is not a hundred competing aims.
It is not a vague sense of trying to be a slightly better person this year than last year.
It is not a list of seventeen things you'd like to accomplish before you die.
It is one thing.
Hear that. One thing.
What is the one thing your life is leaning toward.
Most of us are leaning in fourteen directions at once.
We are leaning toward our kids' success
Our retirement comfort
Our reputation at work
The next vacation a
The never-ending project list at home
And a thousand smaller things, all of them pulling on us at the same time.
This is why we feel scattered and tossed.
The cure for tossed is one-thing.
Pick it. Plant it. Lean toward it.
So what's the one thing?
13 Forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead,
14 I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus.
Here’s v. 13 in NIV:
13 Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,
Forgetting. Straining.
present tense — they are continual. Ongoing. Never finished.
The mature life is forgetting and straining, and tomorrow morning it will be forgetting and straining again.
Forgetting what lies behind
Forgetting what lies behind
13 Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,
First — this is not amnesia.
Paul has not forgotten that he persecuted the church.
He just told us about it three sentences ago. As to zeal, persecuting the church. He remembers.
The Bible doesn't ask you to delete your past from your hard drive. That isn't the command.
Second — this is not "ignore your past."
He's not asking you to pretend your story didn't happen.
He's asking you to refuse to let the past dictate the present pace.
That's the thing.
The past can sit on your shoulder.
The past can show up in your memory.
The past can make itself known in a thousand quiet ways.
What it cannot be is the thing steering the run.
And catch this — Paul means both kinds of past. He means past failure, and he means past faithfulness.
Past failure.
The things you wish you could take back.
The years you don't talk about.
The relationships you wrecked.
The phone call you should have made. T
he temptation you walked into with your eyes open.
The marriage you let slip through your hands.
The kid you didn't show up for.
Paul refuses to let any of that disqualify him.
He persecuted the church of Christ.
He held coats while they stoned Stephen.
And he refuses to let that pull him backward.
Christ has hold of him, and he is running forward.
But he means past faithfulness, too. And this is the harder one for us.
Past faithfulness.
The years of service.
The offices you held.
The classes you taught. T
he souls you discipled.
The seasons when you were strong, when prayer came easy, when you were on fire.
Paul refuses to let any of that satisfy him. He is the apostle to the Gentiles, and he is not done.
Both kinds of past will pull a runner backward.
The runner haunted by failure leans backward in shame.
The runner glowing over old victories leans backward in pride.
Either way, the runner has stopped running.
Picture it like this.
The runner doesn't have a rear-view mirror.
There isn't one strapped to his head.
He's not looking back at all.
The moment a runner glances over his shoulder, the body decelerates.
You can watch it in any race.
The man who looks back loses ground. Always.
Forgetting what lies behind is not the absence of memory. It is the refusal to let memory steer the run.
Straining forward to what lies ahead
Straining forward to what lies ahead
13 Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,
stretching yourself out toward.
Reaching ahead of yourself.
Leaning into the line.
This is the only time we see this word in the NT.
Picture the runner at the tape. You've seen this.
The last few feet of a hundred-meter dash.
Eyes locked on the finish line.
Body arched forward.
Neck out.
Every muscle in the body leaning ahead of the rest of the body.
The runner is out beyond himself.
That's Paul. That's the portrait of maturity.
Feel the contrast Paul is asking us to inhabit. Two pictures. Side by side.
Picture one is the man at the trophy case.
He's looking at what he used to do.
He's surrounded by old finishes.
His hand is on his hip.
His running is in the past tense.
Picture two is the runner at the tape.
Body arched. Eyes locked. Neck out.
Every fiber leaning into the line. Not done.
Now ask yourself — which one of those pictures is more often praised in church culture?
Is it the trophy case. Look at what we've built. Look at what we used to do. Remember when…
But which one does the New Testament call mature?
The strain.
The mature church doesn't sit. It leans.
The goal and the prize
The goal and the prize
Now look at the rest of v. 14.
14 I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus.
The goal.
This is: the mark a runner fixes the eye on.
It's where we get our word scope.
It's the thing you sight in on.
The prize.
14 I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus.
This is the word for what the judge of the games handed to the winner.
Paul is in the stadium imagery from start to finish. The race. The eye. The strain. The prize.
What is the prize?
14 I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus.
Look back to verses 8 through 11.
What did Paul say he wanted?
10 My goal is to know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death,
11 assuming that I will somehow reach the resurrection from among the dead.
The prize is the consummation of vv. 8–11.
The prize is knowing Christ — fully, finally, face to face.
The prize is more of him.
That is what is worth straining for.
That is what is worth forgetting for.
That is what is worth one-thinging your life around.
Christ himself.
The upward call.
Being with him, like him, before the Father.
If your one thing is anything else, you will end up tossed.
Because anything else can be taken from you.
The job can go.
The marriage can fail.
The health can crumble.
The reputation can be burned.
The kids can break your heart.
He cannot be taken. So lean toward him.
So Paul has refused arrival. And he has set the stance. Eyes forward. Body strained. One thing. The prize is Christ.
And now in v. 15 he turns and looks straight at us.
Think This Way (v. 15)
Think This Way (v. 15)
Look at v. 15.
15 Therefore, let all of us who are mature think this way.
Paul three verses telling us about himself.
I press on. I do not consider. I forget. I strain forward. I press on toward the goal.
Three verses. All first-person. All Paul.
And now in v. 15 he turns it on us.
First — he is saying that the mind of vv. 12–14 is not optional.
It is not for super-Christians.
It is what mature means.
If you are mature, this is how you think.
If you don't think this way, whatever you are, you are not yet what Paul calls mature.
Second Paul does not say let those of us who are mature do this way.
He says think this way. Set your mind here.
In Philippians, “Think” shows up ten times in four chapters. Ten.
More than any other Pauline letter relative to its size.
The mindset shapes the life. Settle the mind, and the body follows.
So when you read v. 15, Paul is saying — make this the default of your inner world.
Make this the place your thinking lives.
The forward-leaning, prize-fixed, Christ-grasped frame of mind — that is the home address of the mature Christian.
Something you cannot afford to miss
Something you cannot afford to miss
Look back at v. 12.
12 Not that I … am already perfect,
The word for perfect there means completed, brought to the finish.
Now look at v. 15.
15 let all of us who are mature …
Mature is from the same root word as perfect in v. 12.
In verse 12 he says — I am not completed. I am not at the finish.
In verse 15 he says — Those of us who are mature.
Same root. Different sense.
And Paul puts them within three verses of each other on purpose.
This isn't a contradiction. This is the point.
The mature are precisely those who refuse the claim of completion
They will not say I have arrived. They will not say I am done.
The very thing that makes them mature is that they refuse to call themselves perfect.
Mature means humble enough to keep pressing. M
ature means I have not arrived, and I think this way on purpose.
If somebody asks you on the way out today, what was the sermon about? — that's the answer.
The mature are the ones who know they aren't done.
The cure for tossed
The cure for tossed
Now let’s bring back Ephesians 4:
14 Then we will no longer be little children, tossed by the waves and blown around by every wind of teaching, by human cunning with cleverness in the techniques of deceit.
Why are they tossed?
Because they don't have a settled mind.
The wind comes from the right and they lean right.
The wind comes from the left and they lean left.
Whatever the loudest voice says this week, that's where they end up.
Phil 3:15 is the cure.
Set your mind here.
Forward-leaning. Eye on the prize. One thing.
Christ has hold of you and you have hold of him.
A mind locked on Christ is not blown around.
That is what tossed no more looks like.
It isn't that the wind stopped. The wind never stops.
The pressure outside is real. The voices are loud. The currents are strong.
But something inside the mature Christian got settled, and the wind doesn't move what is settled.
You want to stop being tossed? Settle the mind. Lean forward. Pick the one thing. He has hold of you.
Grace for the slow learner
Grace for the slow learner
One more thing. Look at the very last phrase.
15 And if you think differently about anything, God will reveal this also to you.
Now, if you’ve been thinking I'm not there. I'm not single-eyed. I do let the past steer me. I don't strain forward. I'm not where Paul is.
God will keep teaching you.
He's not done with the slow learners.
He doesn't bludgeon his children.
He doesn't shame them into compliance.
He keeps revealing. He keeps shaping. He keeps growing.
Look at the next verse
16 In any case, we should live up to whatever truth we have attained.
In other words — keep what you have, and trust him with the rest.
This is grace toward the growing.
You don't have to feel like you've arrived to belong with the mature in this room.
You belong by pressing on.
The room is open. The line is unbroken. Press on.
As We Close
As We Close
Two pictures. Choose between them.
Picture one is the man at the trophy case.
He's looking back.
He's surrounded by what he used to do.
The running is in the past tense.
Picture two is the runner at the tape.
Body arched forward.
Eyes locked. Neck out.
Every fiber leaning into the line. Not done.
Paul says — that second one. That's the portrait of a mature Christian.
Not the saint admiring the trophies.
The runner who is still leaning.
Now I want to leave you with four invitations before we sing.
For the long-time member.
Length of service is not the same thing as forward motion. Don't confuse them.
The years on the membership roll are not the prize. Christ is the prize. Lean toward him.
For the newer disciple.
You don't have to feel like you've arrived to belong with the mature in this church.
Belonging is in the leaning. Lean.
For the discouraged.
Christ has already laid hold of you.
You are not running to be found. You are running because you have been found.
The pressure is off the start. The hand is on the back of your neck. Run.
For the drifting.
Pick the one thing. Hen de.
Today is a good day to set the mind.
What will you choose?
Forgetting what lies behind. Straining forward. One thing. Press on.
The grip on you came first. He's not letting go.
Run.
